Meet an enigmatic pigment discovered entirely by accident at the start of the 18th century. Its story involves a rogue inventor with an unlikely connection to Doctor Frankenstein, a characterful trio of Johanns, and a renowned Botticelli forgery. 

This pigment came to be known as Prussian blue or Berlin blue. Before its discovery, a range of blue pigments existed but each had a significant flaw: natural ultramarine was prohibitively expensive, smalt discoloured, azurite turned green and indigo faded. 

Join colour specialist Evie Hatch and National Gallery host Beks Leary for a conversation about the pigment most famously seen in the blue revolution of Japanese woodblock printing, which inspired the Impressionists, as well as in earlier Rococo painting. 

Evie Hatch is an art historian specialising in the history and characteristics of artist pigments. She is the writer and presenter of Jackson's Art Pigment Stories series. 

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Watch the full episode on YouTube: youtu.be/WK1GSvP6VYs

You can email us with any questions via [email protected]

Find out more about the podcast on our website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/podcast

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Paintings mentioned: 

Paolo Veronese’s Four Allegories of Love series, about 1575: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/search-the-collection?q=Four+Allegories+of+Love&tpf=&tpt=&acf=&act=  

Probably by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, A Girl with a Kitten, 1743. The National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/probably-by-jean-baptiste-perronneau-a-girl-with-a-kitten  

Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), about 1830-32. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45434  

Claude Monet, Impression, Soleil Levant, 1872. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris https://www.marmottan.fr/en/notice/4014/  

Claude Monet, Bathers at La Grenouillère, 1869. The National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/claude-monet-bathers-at-la-grenouillere  

Umberto Giunti, Forgery in the manner of Sandro Botticelli, Virgin and Child, about 1920-29. The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) Photo © The Courtauld/Bridgeman Images https://gallerycollections.courtauld.ac.uk/object-p-1947-lf-40  

Further reading: 

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, 2005 

Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, 1710 

For more information on Paolo Veronese’s use of the pigment smalt in the ‘Four Allegories of Love’ series, see the National Gallery’s Technical Bulletin Volume 17, 1996: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/technical-bulletin/penny_roy_spring1996  

Jackson’s article on Prussian Blue ‘The History of Prussian Blue (and why you won’t find it in most acrylic ranges)’ by Evie Hatch, 2022: https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2022/10/07/the-history-of-prussian-blue/  

Watch videos about the science of colour, including ultramarine blue, on the National Gallery YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvb2y26xK6Y4V3T1xHphum23El4b93YzC 

Additional information: 

*Note – Prussia was officially dissolved by the Allied Control Council of occupied Germany on 25 February 1947 

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Episode credits: 

Guest: Evie Hatch 

Host and executive producer: Beks Leary 

Producer: Harry Rosehill 

Researcher: Hannah Rogers 

Technicians: Ian Warren, Jon Sheldon, Ash Baker, Steven Pasquale, Tom Gulliver and Timothy Carpenter 

Editors: Jeanne Kenyon and Amber Akaunu 

Theme music: Theo Elwell 

Mentioned in this episode:

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